X-ray & Optical images of Tycho
A long Chandra observation of Tycho has revealed a pattern of X-ray
"stripes" never seen before in a supernova remnant. The stripes are
seen in the high-energy X-rays (blue) that also show the blast wave, a
shell of extremely energetic electrons. Low-energy X-rays (red) show
expanding debris from the supernova explosion. The stripes, seen to
the lower right of this composite image that includes optical data
from the Digitized Sky Survey, may provide the first direct evidence
that a cosmic event can accelerate particles to energies a hundred
times higher than achieved by the most powerful particle accelerator
on Earth.(Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Rutgers/K.Eriksen et al.; Optical: DSS)

Image With All Stars
This composite image shows the Chandra image - including the high energy
X-rays and the explosion debris - and all of the foreground and
background stars in the DSS image. A bright star appears on top of one of the few
high energy stripes visible in this image. To avoid this issue in the
main image, we "masked out" stars from the region where X-rays
are visible. Here, the unmasked image is shown, giving a slightly different
appearance from our main image.(Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Rutgers/K.Eriksen et al.; Optical: DSS)

High Energy Stripes in the Tycho Supernova Remnant
This Chandra image shows the higher energy X-rays detected from the Tycho
supernova remnant. These X-rays show the expanding blast wave from the
supernova, a shell of extremely energetic electrons. Close-ups of two
different regions are shown, region A containing the brightest stripes and
region B with fainter stripes. The stripes are areas where the magnetic
fields are much more tangled and the particle motion is much more turbulent
than surrounding areas. Electrons become trapped in these regions and emit
X-rays as they spiral around the magnetic field lines.
(Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Rutgers/K.Eriksen et al.;)

Schematic Illustration of the Tycho Stripes
This illustration explains what scientists believe is occurring in the
stripes in the Tycho supernova remnant. The blue, circular region on the
left is a schematic representation of the outer shell making up the blast
wave of the supernova remnant, with the lighter colored regions being the
stripes. The upper panel shows a close-up of a region away from the
stripes, where the black lines show tangled magnetic field lines and the
red line shows an electron spiraling around one of these lines. Electrons
with energies of a trillion electron volts (10^12 eV), corresponding to
energies about 7 times lower than the maximum energy reached by the Large
Hadron Collider (LHC), are responsible for the X-ray emission seen by
Chandra. The middle panel shows a close-up of a faint stripe. Here, the
magnetic fields are much more tangled and the particle motions are much
more turbulent, producing higher energy X-ray emission. In the bright
stripe the tangling of the magnetic fields and the turbulence is even
higher. The spacing between the stripes corresponds to the radius of the
spiraling motion of a proton with an energy over a hundred times larger
than the LHC. The path of such a proton is shown in yellow. Very energetic
particles like this do not radiate efficiently and cannot be detected with
Chandra but are believed to be the origin of the most energetic cosmic rays
in our galaxy.(Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss)